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Java Succumbing to .NET in my Organization
I work for a federal government contractor outside Washington, DC, and I am part of a small group within my organization that produces small- to mid-scale applications, mostly websites hitting a database, for our clients. The management of my group, who are not technologists, has decided to embrace .NET wherever possible for our applications. They cite that Java applications take longer and run into more significant problems than their .NET counterparts.
After talking with some of the developers who are in the trenches, most of them are happy to move to .NET. This even includes some who, like myself, have been certified in and built a career on Java. Apparently, Java is just too hard and too intimidating, especially for beginners.
Java and .Net are comparably powerful technologies. As one who has experience with both, I will say that I prefer the Java experience (especially for developing business logic), so I find it discouraging that Java is losing ground in this way in our organization. I have thought about the reasons why and have come up with some reasons (and I acknowledge I am probably not the first to offer these explanations):
· Too many frameworks
If I want to design a website look-and-feel and page flow in .NET, I use ASP .NET. That’s it. If I do so in Java, I use JSP. Or I use JSP and JSF. Or Facelets and JSF. Or Echo2. Or Tapestry. Or Velocity. The number of choices can be intimidating. And that is just for web design. With persistence frameworks, .NET developers have ADO .NET. Java developers have entity beans and JDO as Sun standards or open-source options like Hibernate, Torque, Spring JDBC, and on and on.
Given all the choices for the web design, the middle-tier, and the back end, developers are overwhelmed by the number of permutations of possibilities. I could go JSP/JSF, Spring, and entity beans; or Tapestry, session beans, and Hibernate; or JSP/JSF, session beans, and entity beans; or ... You get the idea.
· Too many IDEs... all with weaknesses
Closely related to the issue of framework proliferation is the issue of IDE proliferation. Consider IntelliJ IDEA, my favorite IDE. It is an amazing piece of software, but it was really behind the curve on JSP development. And that is a Sun standard! IDEA is also completely unaware of JSF, another Sun standard that has been around quite a while and one whose goal was primarily to facilitate web development in IDEs. If IDEA has this much trouble with Sun standards, imagine how it does with open-source solutions like Spring and Hibernate. Sure there are workarounds and plugins and so forth, but those take time .NET developers don’t need to take.
Of course, if, for example, developers want to use JSF, then they can go with NetBeans, which is offered free from Sun. But then they forego the incredible refactoring capabilities and “smart coding” capabilities that make IDEA so great. For Java developers, it becomes a matter of deciding which IDE is the least incomplete for their needs. Developers in .NET have no such decisions to make.
· Too many infrastructure component possibilities
Developers in .NET have Windows Server and IIS. That’s it. All development organizations have professionals devoted to these technologies. Java developers have Tomcat or Apache, for example, for the web server. If they need to deploy to a full-fledged J2EE server, then there’s WebLogic, OC4J, JBoss, and on and on. Developers need infrastructure staff trained in the organization’s preferred server, and the staff might need to be retrained should this change. In my organization, there is no such staff dedicated to J2EE infrastructure as there is with Microsoft infrastructure.
It should be noted that deployment to IIS is a simple matter for developers—as simple as copying the project to the wwwroot folder. Java developers must build WAR files or EAR files in order to deploy across servers. Not terribly difficult thanks to Ant, but still more work than a simple copy.
What bothers me the most is that these problems negate two distinct advantages that the Java community has over .NET:
· Open-source energy
Microsoft has a lot of talented people working to improve .NET, but no single entity is capable of the creativity of many entities. There is also the possibility that Microsoft creativity may be somehow subject to the company’s corporate aims. Both of these factors can potentially limit the ability of developers to deliver the highest quality software in the least amount of time.
Because no one quite owns Java, much to the chagrin of Sun, there are a lot of great open-source tools out there like Spring, Hibernate, and Struts that result from the efforts of many brilliant, dedicated individuals. The Java community should be able to benefit from this universal effort, and it should be an advantage over .NET. Yet instead it has become a detriment.
· Manifestation of agile methodologies within tools
The Java community embraced agile methodologies well before .NET did (if it even has). Tools created to facilitate agile practices like JUnit, Ant, and CruiseControl, all of which are open-source incidentally, were developed in Java for use in Java projects. Moreover, many leading IDEs like IDEA embraced these tools as core components. The result was a generation of IDEs that served as a one-stop shop for coding, configuration management, automated unit testing, and automated builds.
The .NET community, on the other hand, lagged behind the Java community in all these areas except for configuration management. And even there, Visual Studio .NET only integrates with Visual SourceSafe, another Microsoft product, rather than the all the other choices like ClearCase, Subversion, etc. In the area of other tools related to agile methodologies, only after some time did the fledgling open-source community on the .NET side create equivalents—NUnit, NAnt, and CruiseControl .NET—to their Java counterparts. Agile methodologies transcend implementation technology, yet Microsoft seems to not be quite on board. Only the most powerful, and most expensive, edition of Visual Studio .NET 2005, has NUnit integrated. No such luck with NAnt.
As with open-source energy, the agility advantage has not proved to be a boon for Java. This is because the business community has not grasped the business value of agile techniques—particularly in my organization. Therefore, the advantage Java has in this regard is meaningless.
Again, the technologies are comparable, so the issue is development speed and ease. Ultimately, I think it comes down to the IDEs. If Java development tools allow for rapid development and help to ease a lot of the pain associated with configuration and such, then this would narrow if not close the gap with .NET. Visual Studio 2005 has a number of really compelling features that make development fast and easy and far more palatable to my management. It is no small challenge, however, for the Java realm to accomplish such a feat with the myriad of frameworks out there.
Perhaps the answer is IDE standardization. JSR-198 is a very weak start but a start nonetheless. All IDEs could be built with some minimum standard functionality—like support for all production standards from Sun like JSF and JDO and standard development functionality like drag-and-drop web design. Another standard capability, as Eclipse has pioneered, would be plugin integration and a standard interface for development with the plugin inside the IDE. It would be the responsibility of open-source framework developers to build their software so that it can be incorporated into the standard IDE according to the rules for plugin integration. In this way, Java developers could leverage the power of the open-source movement and agile methodologies while maintaining the simplicity enjoyed by .NET developers.
I would love to hear your thoughts on this topic. How can I convince my management not to abandon Java?
Message was edited by: joeo@enigmastation.com
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Message #209557
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Re: Java Succumbing to .NET in my Organization
One aspect to consider is that the activity of the Java and .Net communities is a strength and a weakness of both. .Net tends to have a very inactive user community compared to Java because .Net developers are, for all intents and purposes, powerless compared to Microsoft; when MS decides to change how things work, no matter how drastically, .Net developers have little choice but to follow along. Thus, they tend to shut up and follow.
On the other hand, Java developers have a huge amount of power. If Sun advocates something that doesn't actually manage their needs, developers stay away... and the JCP views Sun as a participant and not a driver (well, for the most part.) As a result, Java developers are very loud, so to speak, and certainly more powerful than their .Net counterparts.
In many ways, what you're pointing out is the strength and viability of the Java community - strength through diversity - against the "strength through monoculture" of the .Net community. It's "safe" to follow MS - everyone else does it, after all, and using Java requires actually participating in the discourse, one way or the other. Your company is choosing the more quiescent path.
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Message #209559
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Re: Java Succumbing to .NET in my Organization
I see a lot of "too many" in your post: so your organization is not able / worried to make choices? Many alternatives in the Java world means a vibrant community, competion and quality. In the .NET world you have to digest what Microsoft decides is best for you, full stop. That is not too bad if you are just happy with all the tools .NET provides.
Of course, if you need to select a tool / library / app server / framework you need to know what it is about. Generally speaking this kind of fear looks to me typical of organizations without a technical decision maker that is capable to give his/her IT a direction.
My experience is the opposite, at least in Europe I can see more organizations leaving .NET in favour of Java, especially if we are talking about enterprise-level systems. In Europe is generally easier to find good Java developers: universities teach Java and OO in programming courses, while many (not all, luckily) .NET developers are "recycled" VB hobbyist without OO experiences.
At the end, why are you so worried about your management voting for .NET? A good developer can do a lot with .NET, at the end architectures and good designs make a difference, not really supporting technologies. then, it's your management's decision, so you will have someone else to blame. Personally I like Java, however with .NET you can learn someting new and add it to your CV....
My only advice is: be pragmatic and not religious!
Regards,
Maurizio
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Message #209565
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.Net is not necessarily that bad...
O.K. First before people start going off their nut, I want
to clearly establish that I am not a Microsoft bigot.
Quite the contrary, I have been using Java since JDK 1.0 and
with the introduction of J2EE, distributed solutions.
Recently, I have starting using Microsoft's version of
C# and the .Net framework. In the particular IT space I am
it, my customers wanted it, so that was that.
As a framework, there is a lot to like about .Net. It seems
complete. Simple things like text and date formating are
piss easy. Of course the .Net framework has had the benefit
of hindsight, whilst the JDK APIs evolved.
I want to be clear. I am not talking about C# and how it is
a rip-off of Java, yada, yada. I am talking about the .Net
framework.
Some of the characterisations the writer made are slightly
off the mark. There is an SVN plugin called AnhkSVN. It
is not feature complete as say Subclipse, but it is there
and it does work with lower priced versions of Visual
Studio 2005.
If a customer has an established infrastructure of Windows
clients and servers, and they show a preference for .Net
than of course I will work with that. I am not going to go
out of my way and be a Wally and try to push a J2EE solution.
If a customer has an established Unix or heterogenious
server enviornment, then of course I would be recommending
J2EE.
At the end of the day I am not dogmatic one way or the
other. I started out building distributed systems with
Forte Software, so I am not wedding to Java/J2EE or .Net.
Personally, I would rather build distributed systems with
Forte. But alas, Sun sank that ship after acquiring it.
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Message #209560
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Re: Java Succumbing to .NET in my Organization
These arguments all seem to boil down to a simple belief withing your company: Choice Is Bad.
Regarding Web Frameworks - you're right there is a bewildering array at the moment, which is a natural result of the open source energy that you mention. However you don't have to evaluate each one as an equal - there is a quite clear set of about three "leading" frameworks. You can devote your energy to evaluating which of those best fits your needs. Having a choice of only one framework (ASP.NET) may seem to be easier, but what if ASP.NET doesn't fit your needs?
Regarding IDEs - there are three leading Java IDEs at the moment: IntelliJ, Eclipse and NetBeans. The competition between Eclipse and NetBeans is driving them to ever higher levels of functionality and ease of use. IntelliJ is struggling to keep up, you will find there is good JSP support in both NetBeans and Eclipse. Compare this with .NET where you have only one IDE available, and it can't even do basic stuff like refactoring properly. Since Visual Studio.NET has no competition and is not open source, only Microsoft is driving it to improve - and they have a limited imagination.
Regarding ease and speed of development in general, I think that the productivity gains achieved with Microsoft tools and platforms is largely illusory. It is true that Microsoft tries very hard to make certain things easy, and if they anticipate that you would want to do something in a particular way, then they will provide all the wizards and auto-configuration magic to make sure you can achieve it with barely a few mouse clicks. On the other hand, if you want to do something that Microsoft did NOT anticipate you wanting to do, then things suddenly become inordinately hard, or literally impossible.
In comparison to this, Java retains a great deal more flexibility so that, when you need to do something genuinely hard or complex or ground-breaking, you can. The price we pay for that flexibility is that the really simple things cannot be achieved with just a few waves of a magic wand, but I believe that's a price worth paying.
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Message #209562
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Re: Java Succumbing to .NET in my Organization
It depends on a lot of things. For example, what kind of products/services the company is providing, what is the mix of developers, the culture amongst the leaderhip (just imagine an ex. VB fanboy).
I was able to sell Java with open source. I think there is value in that, and if you are succeeding in your projects, other people see the value as well. Choice is not a bad thing when you need to be "agile".
I have also been very diligent in building a solid reusable foundation libraries, something that the .NET developers have failed to do in the company I work for. I just use that as a trademark of a Java developer to create some prestige around the whole thing. So, if you can, tie in your success with Java.
One thing that seems to help is the willingnes to be open and integrate with .NET software when appropriate. There are a lot of .NET guys who do not understand Java and are not willing to look over the fence; so demonstrate that there is no language jealosy and that software can work together just fine. The other point of this is that you can now diversify your developer base - developing software is still about the people and their skill, so if you can find Java talent, you can use that in your company.
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Message #209564
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Getting a clue...
This post inspired a blog entry.
First off, I can't understand why having choices for IDE's and frameworks os a bad thing.
However, the main point of my blog entry is that I believe that the vast majority of developers just don't get OO. They prefer the "fill in the code behind the form" model of development... thanks very much Alan Cooper.
If more people did get OO, this post likely wouldn't exist. Of course, if that were indeed the case, Java probably wouldn't exist either and we'd all be programming in Smalltalk.
The bottom line is that until developers get a clue about OO, tools such as Visual Studio that promote brain-dead practices will thrive.
FWIW, I'd love to be proven wrong.
Dave Rooney
Mayford Technologies
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Message #209566
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I'm sorry but I'm agree with you
I've worked for a company who made the same choice than yours: leaving java for .NET.
It seems that too many choices (even from the same editor JDO/JPA) kill the choice... The worst is in the web framework area where there is not a day without a new annoncement.
This is also the same reason why IBM, with it's websphere line, is so popular in the management: one app server, on ide, middlewares (websphere MQ) and everything integrated (on the paper board).
I love to have the choice (and not a fan of IBM products) but it's conforting. Only one interlocutor, one support contract.
I tried to mix different products to make two phases commit (Webshere MQ, Oracle, JOTM, Enhydra pool connection, Spring) without success. No integration between theses products, almost no documentation for this kind of problem and no support from web forums (I suppose we are not a lot to try to do that). Maybe it would have been more simple if all the products came from the same editor.
So, freedom of choice is really important but also very expensive (in time to study the differents choices). I hope that in a near future there will be a concentration from differents open-source projects to let only 2 or 3 leaders (+ commercial products).
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Message #209567
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.NET ok for less experienced developers
It sounds like what makes .Net great is that it takes away the burden of making decisions. That might be ok for less experienced developers.
I have been programming long enough to know that I want some say over my development environment, testing tools, frameworks etc... Furthermore, I have been on projects where the tools didn't work quite the way I needed them to or came across a bug. Because I was using open source frameworks and tools, I didn't have to make excuses to management on behalf the vendor supplying the tools and explain how our project would have to wait for someone else to (maybe, when they get around to it) fix it. I just dug into the source and fixed it. For less experienced developers, I could see where this might be too intimidating.
I have been on projects where I was locked into a closed source product that doesn't do everything advertised and then you're just stuck. I also developed with Microsoft tools in the early to mid 90's. I will never go back to that again.
Personally, I think it's crazy to tie your career to one vendor's suite of products.
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Message #209569
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You are NOT in a bad spot
.NET is a different world but I think that your company and well as yourself will be OK.
I am yet to see a place that suffered horribly by going .NET instead of Java.
I actually think that what are you seeing is a developing trend.
I see as well increased resistance towards going Java EE for the same reasons as you mentioned.
I think that our (Java EE community) desire to have so much choice in Java EE, for everyone to come up with a new "elegant" framework, to show how smarter he or she is than the previous guy is coming after us to bite us.
Diversity is a good thing, but when diversity turns into a proliferation people start getting uncomfortable.
And I see that discomfort among lots of (very smart and IT savvy) people almost every day.
Edmon Begoli
http://blogs.ittoolboc.com/eai/software
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Message #209568
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Your best choice, get a new job
Which platform one uses is really an executive decision. Once it's been made, there's very little a programmer can do. My bias 2 cents. C# is a solid language. .NET framework is great if you do exactly how MS does it. If not, it becomes a royal pain.
I wouldn't bother trying to convince the management. the only thing it will get you is grief, which may be goor or bad. Many managers I've worked for don't like choice, because in their eyes it is a risk. A good managers knows better and allows the developers enough room to make decisions.
give .NET a try and see if it meets the needs of the project. if it does, then use it. If not, find another job before the project crashes and you get "let go".
peter
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Message #209571
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Re: Java Succumbing to .NET in my Organization
Sorry, but if your management is heading down the all-Microsoft way, then there is no point in arguing. Go with them, or leave the company. And if your development leads are "intimidated" by "too many frameworks" or "infrastructure possibilities", then your team is inevitably doomed anyway, and you should resign quickly.
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Message #209572
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Re: Java Succumbing to .NET in my Organization
It sounds to me like your manager is making the right choice. When you have a group with a lot of "beginner" programmers, and you are producing smaller applications, and you are in a Windows-only environment, it is hard to go wrong with .NET.
The fact that most of your colleagues feel comfortable with the switch helps to confirm that this was a smart move.
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Message #209573
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Re: Java Succumbing to .NET in my Organization
And if your development leads are "intimidated" by "too many frameworks" or "infrastructure possibilities", then your team is inevitably doomed anyway
I think that is way too hard. Even though my experience with .NET is very limited, I can imagine a group of not-so-ambitious programmers (you know, those with a private life ;)) that are productive with it and fulfill the requirements of their management, in their given environment.
If that is so, why shouldn't they stay where they are? I have better things to do (with Java) than argue on such a basis.
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Message #209574
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Re: Java Succumbing to .NET in my Organization
I am personally cautious about relying on even apparently key development technologies, like .NET, that come from Microsoft. The reason is that Microsoft has a history of changing direction in terms of development languages and tools and leaving many developers behind. Some examples: Object Pascal (their attempt to compete with Turbo Pascal). Microsoft Fortran. PenWindows. Visual Basic 6 (a migration to VB.NET is not trivial).
Java may well be primarily under Sun's control, but it is not a single-source product from a source that has a known reputation for dropping even successful products. (Mono, often mentioned in such discussions, is not yet a satisfactory substitute for enterprise-level .NET).
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Message #209578
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.NET makes a lot of sense
Our products run on both Java and .NET so we are constantly in both. And I have to say, if you are in a 100% Windows environment, I think .NET is superior (personal opinion!).
There is a lot of benefit where the entire software stack comes from a single company. They designed it after Java and learned a lot from Java. And with .NET 2.0 it is as solid and full-featured as Java.
In terms of development, it's a dream. You can create a web service in a minute or two. Security is integrated into the system throughout - you can access Sql Server on the server using the credentials of the client user (from the browser) without ever seeing the user's password. The list of items like this goes on and on.
And VisualStudio supports every part of the entire API.
So, take this as an opportunity to learn C#. You will probably find in 3 - 6 months that you agree with the switch to .NET.
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Message #209579
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Re: Java Succumbing to .NET in my Organization
that produces small- to mid-scale applications, mostly websites hitting a database
Your description of what your organization does is the best explanation of why .NET is not a bad choice in this case. It is the space where .NET excels. I've worked in a few mixed environments where we did J2EE and .NET (and legacy). J2EE was used for enterprise services and legacy integration and .NET was used for the presentation layer, web publishing and departmental applications. The perception (amongst IT staff) was that .NET was easier to use and very capable in the small to mid space and where the requirements were not too demanding. In this space J2EE was overkill. On the other hand, .NET did not integrate as well and was not powerful enough for our enterprise applications. .NET also fit better the skill and experience levels of the developers we typically assigned to these less demanding applications. Our best and most experienced developers worked on J2EE where they not only needed their skills but had the opportunity to fully leverage them.
Even though I'm a Java and J2EE SOA guy, I'd be hard pressed to come up with a technical argument against using .NET for these things.
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Message #209582
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Re: Java Succumbing to .NET in my Organization
First I would like to agree with many other posters in that there is nothing wrong with move to .Net. As you mentioned it does have some very real advantages. Here is a list of shortcomings that I've run into:
1. Source code for .net is unavailable. Often you have to wonder through undocumented classes and try to reconstruct logic by looking at the call-stack. As an example, .Net 1.1 web's upload capability is unsuitable for large files. It tries to cache the whole file in RAM. Once I decided to write my own upload functionality in .Net and it was a major pain: no documentation for underlying/infrastructure classes.
2. It's hard to do anything that just a tad off mainstream, but mainstream itself is very easy. Again my example is developing a web app with frameset based design, where frameset definition was generated in the code (it was a dynamic frameset definition). It was rather hard to make to make .Net page-controller to behave properly.
3. Clustering and failover infrastructure is much stronger for Java. You do need to get right app server for that, but with .Net you have very limited options in this area.
Now on the positive side .Net has a power of MS behind it. MS usually creates closed but polished software. Take a look at generics. They are much better implemented in .Net, then in Java. String substitution is much better done in .Net (which is important if you want to support other languages).
Starting from scratch I would always opt for .Net over Java, unless I really need something that .Net missing. Yet often I end up using Java, because many projects that I work on, require solid clustering and failover.
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Message #209583
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The right tool for the right Job
It's the reponsibility of management and the developer to make sure that they select the right tool for the right project to provide an acceptable solution to the problem.
As developers we always praise the merrit of loose coupling. The solution should not be strongly tied to a tool or framework/language/process (.net, java, ruby, php, or python). But rather, the solution should be decoupled so that management can select the appropriate tool, framework, and process to apply to arrive at the solution.
So, if your shop is adopting .Net, it's probably the most appropriate tool for this project or group of people (I am sure there are some political factors involved). However, if .Net makes sense, why not use it? If it provides the solution why fight it?
*** Some Corrections ***
No IDE/Framwork can make you a better developer. Any tool and technology can be misused.
Comparing Visual Studio to Eclipse and NetBean is improper since Visual Studio (standard+) is not a free tool, but Eclipse and NetBeans are. Of course you will get more from the commercial tool.
Your writeup assumes having too many choices may be a weekness of Java. However, .Net is just one of many choices that a developer has including PHP, Python, and now Ruby (assuming web development).
- organic logic -
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Message #209584
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Re: .NET makes a lot of sense
Our products run on both Java and .NET so we are constantly in both. And I have to say, if you are in a 100% Windows environment, I think .NET is superior (personal opinion!).
.NET is "by the Windows, of the Windows and for the Windows." If I were only developing for Windows, and particularly if tight integration with Microsoft products were important, then I'd most probably use .NET.
The real idiotic decision by Microsoft was to make it incompatible with Java, which means that developers are typically left with "either / or" choices. In the end, it will be the failure of .NET, because it's an all-or-nothing gambit (and I believe it provable that Microsoft cannot win "all").
Peace,
Cameron Purdy
Tangosol Coherence: The Java Data Grid
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Message #209586
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Choice is bad for staffing
There's one additional problem to consider:
The bigger the choice of frameworks, the lesser the chance that you'll get the one developer that is productive in your specific framework mix.
I always see problems in hiring Java developers when it comes to real-life experience with frameworks. Many have tried this and that, read books and whitepapers, but can handle only a handful of frameworks in a mature and professional way that would require deep knowledge about the technology.
Framework scatter is choice, but it contains the risk of not reaching your stakeholder's aims. And finally it's them that pay your work. And usually they don't care about the design details.
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Message #209587
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Re: Your best choice, get a new job
I second Peter Lin's comments: "C# is a solid language. .NET framework is great if you do exactly how MS does it. If not, it becomes a royal pain."
I used to do a lot of Win16/32 programming (some COM) many years ago. I have been almost exclusively in the Java/J2EE space for a long time now, after getting fed up with MS's "functions as implemented" attitude and their general lack of specifications.
Recently I have dipped my toe back into C# programming and it has been interesting to see the changes... and the lack of changes. I will try to illustrate with a concrete example.
I have been building an Outlook add-in using C# and it has been quite a revelation. The wizard built into VS generates the add-in (as well as the installer) and you can run a "Hello World" example in under 15 minutes. The programming model (APIs) for Office in C# are pretty straight forward. After tinkering around for a while I started to add features and was quickly pleased with the results.
First, you start to see non-deterministic behavior of the menus and event handlers... Why? Because the Runtime Callable Wrapper (RCW, the .NET proxy for the COM objects) can be garbage collected, and when GC kicks in your event handlers are toasted. You need to make sure you maintain static references to any .NET proxies you manipulate.
Second, sometimes Outlook fails to shutdown. Again this is a .NET CLR / COM problem. The RCW maintains a COM reference count (remember those things?) each time you cross the managed/unmanaged code boundary and if this reference count gets out of whack the calling process does not exit cleanly.
Third, version management issues. Specifically Office applications cannot run add-ins compiled against the .NET 1.1 and .NET 2.0 frameworks at the same time (a process is limited to one version of the .NET runtime). MS's newest add-in technology VSTO requires .NET 2.0 while many existing add-ins are based on 1.1.
Forth, library management issues. The Primary Interop Assemblies (PIA... good acronym!) can either be loaded from the application or from the GAC. In the case of Office different PIAs are available for different versions of Office, making targeting multiple versions very difficult.
Fifth, security. The Outlook security model is very complex (arbitrary/obtuse?). The MS recommended model for secure Outlook access is to call your (signed) managed CLR code from an unmanaged DLL (shim)! Setting that up is definitely not something you'd undertake lightly.
Most (all?) of these issues are covered by Microsoft MSDN articles and Knowledge-base entries.
I have a profound sense of deja-vu in all this… Doing the trivial things is simple, but doing "real" things turns out to be really hard, and the number of developers that can help you seems to be much smaller than in the Java world. It reminds me of building MFC applications all those years ago, using "Spy" to analyze the (undocumented) windows events, and then hacking in WndProc hooks to implement workaround for bugs.
Of course perhaps my experience has been tainted, because I am relatively new to the .NET toolset and I am using COM Interop. It certainly doesn’t feel like the world has changed that much over on the other side of the fence!
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Message #209589
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Re: Java Succumbing to .NET in my Organization
In many ways, what you're pointing out is the strength and viability of the Java community - strength through diversity - against the "strength through monoculture" of the .Net community. It's "safe" to follow MS - everyone else does it, after all, and using Java requires actually participating in the discourse, one way or the other. Your company is choosing the more quiescent path.
Actually, one could make an argument that the Java Community is part of the problem. IT Management, for the most part, doesn't care about "community" and the old adage "noone got fired for choosing Microsoft" is lot more powerful of a factor than "a vibrant community" with open discourse. That doesn't mean that honest discussion can't take place, it's just that, in the Java community lately, it doesn't seem to happen.
The bottom line is that a sale must be made. IT technologies survive by money being allocated towards their use. .NET has the least resistance versus a community that uses scatology, ad hominem attacks and backbiting between open source "visionary" framework builders to nullify each other. I'm not sure I'd classify that as diversity and power of choice. The managers I work with could care less about all the egos battling it out in the current arena. They are wary of choosing one technology, irrespective of technical/business value, only to have a blogger with some weight in the community use hyperbole to gut that same framework with no valid counterpoint other than "it sucks and anyone who uses it is an asswipe" and "my framework is better 'cuz I say so" and have a competing manager slap him in the face with it at a Friday meeting in front of the boss.
From a technology standpoint, Java is still the way to go for current IT problem domains with the exception of the presentation layer. It's this tangible layer that management sees day in and day out, and where Microsoft has a significant lead for better or worse.
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Message #209590
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Re: Java Succumbing to .NET in my Organization
To me it looks a typical case of "why more is less". When the number of choices available are too many, it is not worth the effort to pick up the best.
Management does not find it worth to invest time/resources to pick up the best products/tools available in java domain, so it makes a rule of thumb and goes for all .net technologies. May be, they will end up not having the greatest or best but if it can solve the problem resonably well, it is good enough.
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Message #209594
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Re: Java Succumbing to .NET in my Organization
These arguments all seem to boil down to a simple belief withing your company: Choice Is Bad.
I don't think that's true. I have worked with both Java and .NET and there is more to the simplicity of .NET than wizards and the lack of choice. The main thing is J2EE's inadequate deployment/redeployment model. It's simply too complex and too slow for development which leads to a situation where each app server vendor and tool maker invents their own workarounds.
Just look in the forums of any tool or app server. You'll find a huge number of postings asking why this or that is not loaded or reloaded as expected and what can be done to speed up turnaround for larger applications. People don't find anything in those weird temporary structures created by all the tools and deployment processes. Everything is duplicated three or four times, copied, zipped, exploded, etc.
Why are html pages, CSS files, images, JSPs, etc copied to a deployment/staging directory, zipped into a jar, copied to another directory, and then unzipped by the app server in yet another directory? Why is there no standard way, observed by all app servers, to leave all this stuff in place? Why was the J2EE class loader hierarchy not standardised? Why has nobody thought of the whole deployment process in a pragmatic way that doesn't make hordes of J2EE developers wait ages for ant scripts to finish and debug reloading issues?
Now, don't tell me that this or that app server deploys this or that jar thingy really really smoothly. I know that, I've been doing this for a long time. But deployment/redeployment has always been complex, slow and error-prone. Some kinds of issues just never seem to go away. Something always goes wrong. The J2EE spec was very "wise" to introduce a separate deployer role. Unfortunately, it's not just a role, it's a job. A job nobody wants to do and only big companies want to pay for because they have deployment complexity anyway.
Choice can work very well on top of a sound platform.
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Message #209600
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Re: Java Succumbing to .NET in my Organization
I am using Java in day jobs. But I am starting to open my eyes on other alternatives when deciding what should be the next technology for my own projects.
.Net may not be bad for big sites. Since it's just ONE framework, everybody can pick it up and start to talk in the same language. There are some big sites running .NET.
.Net seems pretty good in terms of ROI. It's fast to develop. And don't look down upon "recycled" VB programmer. They got the job done, faster than java developers! It's a good management choice if you can find VB programmers.
In terms of alternatives, Java is not necessarily the best. I starts to like Ruby on Rails, Nitro, which really get the job done and still non-Microsoft. Python also have django. Lisp can be better if you know the name "Paul Graham" and you can find one or two Lisp masters.
It's not you have to use Java because it's marketed as "secure"/"reliable"/etc. It really depends on your requirements. For things in your organization, you may not need to do any un-common things and most of them are covered by .Net, why not choose .Net when it can save money and get things done quicker? Management may not understand technology, but they are not stupid on money.
Chris Lu
--------------------------
Instant Full-Text Search on Any Databases/Applications
http://www.dbsight.net
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Message #209605
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Management Speaks
I'm a director of IT in my company. One of the key success factors in my organization is a zen-like focus on simplicity. I love the choice of all the Java frameworks, but its really hard to go wrong with "old school" JSP/Hibernate/servlets. No heavy frameworks, complexity, etc. The stuff we build will scale to high heaven cheaply and easily with very little administration.
I'm looking to take simplicity to new heights going forward and see if REST architecture can simplify my traditional SOAP XML web services. Perhaps even swap out the very verbose XML for JSON, which is much lighter.
I digress. Your management feels they're making a good business/technical choice. You can either get on board, get a new job, or show them that just because there's a dizzying amount of choice in Java that doesn't mean life needs to be complex.
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Message #209616
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Java Succumbing to .NET in my Organization
Sounds like your problem is more with the "best practices" in the Java world as opposed to the "best practices" in the .NET world.
With respect to only web-apps in the Java world, a best practice is to use Model 2 MVC development (Struts/JSF), use Hibernate, probably Spring. In the .NET world the best pratice is to use Model 1 straight up ASP and ADO.NET without any middle frameworks.
You just need to *NOT* follow the "best practice" java development and you will be mimicking .NET development. For example:
Too many frameworks:
--------------------
If you are going to use ADO.NET and asp why not substitute
that with straight JDBC and JSP. Why even bother with JSF/Struts/Tapestry?. It is not apples to apples when you bring in the frameworks. Yes they do exist but you don't *HAVE* to use them. How are the folks in the .NET world getting around without having a JSF/Struts equivalent?
Use Model 1 JSP if you just want eye for an eye comparison with .NET.
Too many IDEs... all with weaknesses
------------------------------------
Once again if you tie your framework (JSF/Struts)to your IDE you are going to be disappointed. Why not just stick with
the one which has a reasonable HTML/JSP editor. As long as
you stick to Model 1 you will find MyEclipse/NetBeans suitable.
Too many infrastructure component possibilities
-----------------------------------------------
Once again its easy to setup a Apache/Resin combo that just
does simple webapps. You don't have to deploy a WAR. You can
copy over your JSPs and servlets in a directory.
Open source energy
-----------------
Most of the energy is spent in making better frameworks which you obviously don't want to use so yes, they won't be
of advantage to those who stick to .NET best practices.
Agile techniques
----------------
I bet Ant is a lot faster than zipping your ASP pages manually and then exploding the zip in your ASP root dir.
Once again agile techniques help only if you are following best practices in the first place. If you are manually copying directories to production.. agile techniques are not for you.
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Message #209619
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Re: Java Succumbing to .NET in my Organization
I would like to say technologies are driven by “Requirements”. There might be a reason that’s why management comes up with .NET. Also, it’s very good for you to learn .NET
There is nothing wrong with .NET and JAVA. People are making “hell” lots of money using these technologies. So, learn how to make money instead of wasting your valuable time like this.
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Message #209623
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Re: Java Succumbing to .NET in my Organization
another thing to consider, is licensing costs of using .NET platform. we are a small group like yours, but use open source whereever possible, and to minimize licensing costs. in our case using java and scripting languages where practical we will use them. like another person said in this thread, be practical and pragmattic. and in our context, using java and other non-.net technologies make the most sense.
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Message #209626
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"enterprise java" ...it's SIMPLE, really!
Begin by telling your management that the web page they asked you to build isn't as simple as they think. It needs to be SCALABLE. It needs to QUEUE all requests using message driven beans. (When you talk to them, speak in acronyms, so be sure you say "MDBs"). Then explain to them that it needs to use entity modeling to access the 2 tables of the database, so you will need to use STATLESS SESSION BEANS as a facade to ENTITY BEANS. Also explain that you will shortly replace all the old-school EJB's with the new school EJB's, you know, the POJO ones. Anyway, try not to get frustrated, they are going to have a hard time understanding the ENTERPRISE, and how everything has to SCALE, and how COMPLEX it really is. You have to be really smart to get it anyway.
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Message #209628
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Re: Java Succumbing to .NET in my Organization
To start with really great post.
There are quite a few companies out there dropping J2EE (not especially Java) and truning to .NET. They have been burnt with so called architects who made projects fail when they picked the wrong framework/product for the job. I must admit I can see their point because why would you not turn to a technology where it may not be the greatest but your chances of getting burnt by bad technology choices (because their are very few to make) are small.
At the end of the day you need smart and experienced people if you are going to work in a technology like Java where they are lots of choices and pot holes. Sadly those people are thin on the ground and with the market picking up the numbers are getting even thinner.
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Message #209633
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Re: Java Succumbing to .NET in my Organization
Sorry, but if your management is heading down the all-Microsoft way, then there is no point in arguing. Go with them, or leave the company. And if your development leads are "intimidated" by "too many frameworks" or "infrastructure possibilities", then your team is inevitably doomed anyway, and you should resign quickly.
+1
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Message #209636
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Re: Java Succumbing to .NET in my Organization
It’s always the same. Someone rightfully complaining about the proliferation of very similar frameworks and tools and someone answering that we need them. We don’t. It’s as simple as that.
Some people claim we can simply evaluate what’s best and use that. We can’t.
1. Whatever the claim the evaluations are a major work to be done. We have better things to do. (And we do many evaluations so we know.)
2. A major issue here is waste of effort in making similar things. We do need 2 or 3 of each for the sake of competition, but not 5 or 10.
3. When there are so many alternatives some of them will be badly designed, but still hailed by many users so it’s hard to find out what to use and what not.
4. In some areas you are wrong though: There are essentially only 2 IDE’s. All non open source IDE’s will disappear due to all the money and effort spent on the open source ones.
For DB access there seems to be only Hibernate and iBatis (although non of them seems to be by far as good as they could and should be by now – by far!).
May be there aren’t really that many tools for web development either, but that’s where the major problem seems to be right now. Also there don’t seem to be any clear tool and/or framework winners for Swing development. (But things are happening and Swing have clearly – and luckily – won over SWT.)
5. Look at Microsoft and what they do. Visual Basic used to be the best tool around for a lot of GUI development (no competition in sight on MS Windows at it’s height actually). Then they made it object oriented and compatible with .NET in a way that essentially rendered all old code next to useless. To a significant extent they have also done similar things with c/c++ not only during the upgrade to .NET, but also through earlier library changes.
Java programmers generally so misunderstand Visual Basic that they aren’t even close to making these Microsoft problems into advantages for Java.
This is of course where Java also has some problems without the right framework and to some extent tool choices.
The basic solution is for you to make the right choices and tell your organization: Look, Java has the best frameworks, tools, utilities and whatever you need. You also gain the greatest independence from any company or organization that has ever been seen in the development world. It’s likely you can live with these right choices for a very long time and you can expect them to be significantly enhanced year after year in an upward compatible way. Very significant for any sane company. And even if you should be wrong in a choice of some product most of the time it isn’t all that hard to switch – and at least you do have that option.
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Message #209637
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Re: Java Succumbing to .NET in my Organization
If what you want do is create a front end to a database or integrate with a Office applications then use .NET. It is quicker than using Java. However if you want to create a highly scalable, highly available application that needs to update numerous databases and legacy systems in the same transaction then use J2EE.
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Message #209638
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Choice is not bad: but it leads to fragmentation
Choice is not a bad thing. However, the problem with Java is that quite often all of these choices just don't offer truely powerful solutions (yes, there are exceptions like Hibernate). You just have all these really cool, but not quite 100% fragments. If you want to build a web environment, you can take Struts and it's quite good. You'll probably lose (waste) a lot of time with configuration files etc and trying to get a multilingual validation up and running, but generally: a good framework. Then you get to the UI. So you look and you think: JSP is the standard, I'll take that. Next, you find yourself looking for GUI components here and there and trying to integrate them. Developing in JSP is a nightmare so that's a time killer right there. As far as the GUI goes, we have *finally* seen some good stuff coming out recently, but up till now I just couldn't believe how bad the tooling is in this area. Whenever, SUN comes out with something like JSF or AJAX components, it's just "back to 1995": look we can do a form!!! Creating something that looks slick and cool also means you actually tried to do something with the framework that we all have to do in the real world. Let's get out of this Hello World mentality please! Compare this to the stuff Microsoft comes out with and you'll know what I'm talking about. It's simply: production power. Not all of us have to build enterprise, super scalable stuff. I love Java but I just don't want to spend my time fiddling with thousands of XML configuration files for thousands of half complete open source solutions, wasting time, reading manuals and being frustrated. I want solid development power, out of the box, looking slick and cool and working well. Not too much to ask I would say....
Cheers,
Marc
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Message #209640
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Dumb question ...
Here's my dumb question for everyone. I'm sure everyone has seen the argument "make 90% of what people do brain dead easy." Given that J2EE has a strong bias towards integrations, is there really a 90% that is common "enough" that a general purpose solution would fit? Or maybe a significant percent of the apps built with Java are messy integrations and doesn't fit the 90% model. If that's the case, why is it that people making basic websites that dump database tables to a webpage drag the discussion down the "make the common stuff simple" argument.
Since I've done mostly integration stuff the last 7 years, my experience is that integration varies widely, so a general purpose and brain dead solution is impractical. J2EE already contains enough API to handle many of the common integration scenarios. If a project doesn't have to deal with integration across a dozen or more systems, having to deal with all the specs and API will probably feel overly complex. In that case, my bias thinking is that .NET "could" be a good fit. On the otherhand, if an application has to deal with messy integration and 2-phase commits across the internet, .NET would be a poor choice.
anyone willing to guess if there's really a "common 90%" or is it just a myth?
peter
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Message #209646
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Re: Dumb question ...
Peter, how do we escape going in circles with one side repeating that everything is too complex and the other side repeating that the complexity is down to the complexity of the task?
I think the only way to move this debate forward is to clearly state the problem that a particular feature/technology is supposed to solve and then discuss the various options.
I assume that the JCP has done just that in the case of EJB and they have come to the conclusion that it can be done in a simpler way. Now, do you think they have dumped some capability that was there in EJB 2.1 that you need for your integration work? (which is exactly what I do by the way) If the answer is no, then this is a case of true simplification and not a case of dumbing down. It can be done in other areas like packaging and deployment as well.
I'm not for dumping a technology just because some people might think it's complicated. But I'm in favour of thinking harder whether a particular solution is the simplest way to solve a particular problem.
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Message #209645
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moving to another world
Such an interesting discussion and responses.
I have been developing in MS for well over 12 years. recently while being shipped overseas to retread a flat tire (software analogy), looking down the road I realized that this software was flat on it's face and going no where. The company I was contracted to was a full fledged major-corp-java-c++ company. After months of deciding what to do, they moved the development to java (duh - it's YOUR platform)
During the decision months, I had much time reflect on life and it's grand wonders. While I sat there contiplating my next move, I decided to pick up a Java book. After a few weeks I was rolling.
Transition Time-
If I learned one thing, it's that I realized I was having my hand held during development with MS. When I started to dive into JAVA, Struts, JSP, etc....I found that everything had to be set and in it's correct order and location. Not just throw it anywhere and MS will find it.
At first I was kinda frustrated at the complexity of the platform....but then looking back, I was in the same boat with MS. I had to reach the proverbial "top of the hill". Once I got to that point....it all started making sense.
Well, now it's 6 months later, and have been developing strong in the JAVA platform. Am I impressed? well to say the least YES! I find it much stronger and more robust for me, able to somewhat handle more than ASP can. I have done the ol' OO development, but I am now having a tendancy to develop more in JAVA for the large scale apps, and leaving the little stuff to MS. Plus I can make JAVA do EXACTLY what I want it to do.
Both platforms suit their purpose, both perform as they should. Only the people who truely experienced both sides can honestly discuss this with knowledge. I know where I stand, and I also know where my resume stands :)
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Message #209647
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moving to another world
Such an interesting discussion and responses.
I have been developing in MS for well over 12 years. recently while being shipped overseas to retread a flat tire (software analogy), looking down the road I realized that this software was flat on it's face and going no where. The company I was contracted to was a full fledged major-corp-java-c++ company. After months of deciding what to do, they moved the development to java (duh - it's YOUR platform)
During the decision months, I had much time reflect on life and it's grand wonders. While I sat there contiplating my next move, I decided to pick up a Java book. After a few weeks I was rolling.
Transition Time-
If I learned one thing, it's that I realized I was having my hand held during development with MS. When I started to dive into JAVA, Struts, JSP, etc....I found that everything had to be set and in it's correct order and location. Not just throw it anywhere and MS will find it.
At first I was kinda frustrated at the complexity of the platform....but then looking back, I was in the same boat with MS. I had to reach the proverbial "top of the hill". Once I got to that point....it all started making sense.
Well, now it's 6 months later, and have been developing strong in the JAVA platform. Am I impressed? well to say the least YES! I find it much stronger and more robust for me, able to somewhat handle more than ASP can. I am now having a tendancy to develop more in JAVA for the large scale apps, and leaving the little stuff to MS. Plus I can make JAVA do EXACTLY what I want it to do.
Both platforms suit their purpose, both perform as they should. Only the people who truely experienced both sides can honestly discuss this with knowledge. I know where I stand, and I also know where my resume stands :)
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Message #209648
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Re: Java Succumbing to .NET in my Organization
I've noticed the same trend around here. Not in our organization, because neither is our core technology, but with the developers that left here and went on to do Java during the big Java boom in the late 90s, early 2000s.
They actually like C#/.NET better than Java, but (like most programmers probably), don't like the lack of choice. And on the client, it's not really an issue, because they never felt Swing was much of a choice to begin with.
The unknown in all of this is whether Mono will ever be able to stack up as hardcore, production level technology. Some of these people have been playing around with in less critical environments.
But the thing is that .NET is going to be around for a very long time, so we'll probably see altnernative frameworks arise eventually.
Oh, and the other thing that they've commented on that they really like is the easy native interop.
Personally, I like the openess around Java, but see the strengths of .NET/C#.
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Message #209649
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things can improve
Peter, how do we escape going in circles with one side repeating that everything is too complex and the other side repeating that the complexity is down to the complexity of the task?
I think the only way to move this debate forward is to clearly state the problem that a particular feature/technology is supposed to solve and then discuss the various options.
I assume that the JCP has done just that in the case of EJB and they have come to the conclusion that it can be done in a simpler way. Now, do you think they have dumped some capability that was there in EJB 2.1 that you need for your integration work? (which is exactly what I do by the way) If the answer is no, then this is a case of true simplification and not a case of dumbing down. It can be done in other areas like packaging and deployment as well.
I'm not for dumping a technology just because some people might think it's complicated. But I'm in favour of thinking harder whether a particular solution is the simplest way to solve a particular problem.
I completely agree that many "complex" tasks can be made easier, though not necessarily easy. I'll use an example. Say I have to integrate with 4 third party systems, each with it's own database model, object model and services. Part of the complexity of integrating for me is the human aspect of coming to an agreement with a business partner what is "needed" and where problems occur due to incompatability. Say my system allows a customer to be in 3 states: active, suspended, terminated. My business partners have many more states an account can be in. To make things worse, say one of the partners processes account updates in batches manually. Another one does it in real-time and third uses batches and real-time.
Now, if I want to do this with J2EE, there's alot of things I can use to solve this problem. To do the same thing in .NET, it's considerably harder and quite painful. I have no proof or data (only first hand experienc) to back up this opinion, but I think for integration scenarios, the requirements vary wildly. Back when I worked on simple websites that simply formatted 1 or 2 tables per page, a simple approach with good defaults makes a lot of sense. I haven't worked on that kind of application in a long time, so I really don't know what people are doing for websites today.
clearly, the two camps often end up in an endless debate claiming the other side doesn't understand. my goal isn't that. I'm just questioning why there is this huge disconnect between the two sides and why it is so hard to bridge the gap. that and playing devil's advocate.
peter
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Message #209656
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Re: things can improve
I'm just questioning why there is this huge disconnect between the two sides and why it is so hard to bridge the gap. that and playing devil's advocate.
peter
I think part of the problem has been that J2EE was supposed to be the middleware solution where economy of scale and a common nexus would alleviate integration hassles and promote enterprise distributed computing as evidenced by your complex example. For some reason, this sphere of influence leaked into the presentation layer domain where most of the pain people are experiencing is cropping up and where other technologies better address the problem.
My question is whether the gap needs to be bridged -- at least from a one solution fits all perspective. I'm not sure why it was extended in the first place. As you put it, J2EE has a pretty robust toolkit for integration/transaction solutions and is where it's strength lies. It's just not as friendly in the presentation layer space and client/server mode. Unfortunately, the argument seems to always be all or nothing with J2EE and to be fair with the other camps as well.
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Message #209657
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Re: things can improve
I'm just questioning why there is this huge disconnect between the two sides and why it is so hard to bridge the gap. that and playing devil's advocate.
peter
I think part of the problem has been that J2EE was supposed to be the middleware solution where economy of scale and a common nexus would alleviate integration hassles and promote enterprise distributed computing as evidenced by your complex example. For some reason, this sphere of influence leaked into the presentation layer domain where most of the pain people are experiencing is cropping up and where other technologies better address the problem.
My question is whether the gap needs to be bridged -- at least from a one solution fits all perspective. I'm not sure why it was extended in the first place. As you put it, J2EE has a pretty robust toolkit for integration/transaction solutions and is where it's strength lies. It's just not as friendly in the presentation layer space and client/server mode. Unfortunately, the argument seems to always be all or nothing with J2EE and to be fair with the other camps as well.
from a technical perspective, I don't feel it's desirable to bridge the gap. From a human perspective, I'd like to think bridging the gap would be beneficial.
I don't like the "be all and end all solution" sales guys pitch. unfortunately, they are necessary evil of life. At the end of the day though, it doesn't matter what framework is used. It's the people building the application that determine whether or not it fails.
peter
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Message #209658
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encourage interop
Since .NET is making inroads in your organization, the best way to keep your organization using Java is to promote interoperability strategies so that your team can become aware of how they can retain their Java investment even when doing .NET development. There are numerous interop strategies, including Web services interop, bridging technologies, and others. We provice an interop product (JNBridge), but there are a number of others, including several that are open source. It would probably be a good idea to start with one of the several interop books that are out there, including those by Simon Guest, Peter Laudati (both of Microsoft), Dwight Peltzer, and the new book by Marina Fisher from Sun.
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Message #209663
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Re: Java Succumbing to .NET in my Organization
I think Joel Spolsky put it best in his blog at http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/APIWar.html:
"...technically. .NET is a great programming environment that manages your memory and has a rich, complete, and consistent interface to the operating system and a rich, super complete, and elegant object library for basic operations.
And yet, people aren't really using .NET much.
Oh sure, some of them are.
But the idea of unifying the mess of Visual Basic and Windows API programming by creating a completely new, ground-up programming environment with not one, not two, but three languages (or are there four?) is sort of like the idea of getting two quarreling kids to stop arguing by shouting "shut up!" louder than either of them. It only works on TV. In real life when you shout "shut up!" to two people arguing loudly you just create a louder three-way argument."
"So now instead of .NET unifying and simplifying, we have a big 6-way mess, with everybody trying to figure out which development strategy to use and whether they can afford to port their existing applications to .NET.
No matter how consistent Microsoft is in their marketing message ("just use .NET—trust us!"), most of their customers are still using C, C++, Visual Basic 6.0, and classic ASP, not to mention all the other development tools from other companies. And the ones that are using .NET are using ASP.NET to develop web applications, which run on a Windows server but don't require Windows clients"
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Message #209670
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Re: Java Succumbing to .NET in my Organization
And yet, people aren't really using .NET much.
Nonsense
But the idea of unifying the mess of Visual Basic and Windows API programming by creating a completely new, ground-up programming environment with not one, not two, but three languages (or are there four?) is sort of like the idea of getting two quarreling kids to stop arguing by shouting "shut up!" louder than either of them. It only works on TV. In real life when you shout "shut up!" to two people arguing loudly you just create a louder three-way argument."
Except your analogy doesn't make sense. You do realize that this isn't 2001 and they've already done it, don't you? Maybe this stuff is complicated for you, but not for other people. It's as simple as "We're going to use C# for this project", or "we're going to use VB.NET for this project.
No matter how consistent Microsoft is in their marketing message ("just use .NET—trust us!"), most of their customers are still using C, C++, Visual Basic 6.0, and classic ASP, not to mention all the other development tools from other companies. And the ones that are using .NET are using ASP.NET to develop web applications, which run on a Windows server but don't require Windows clients"
Do you even know that C/C++ can be compiled to .NET? In any case, .NET is the future of Windows programming whether people like it or not. There's just no getting around it. And since desktop linux never took off, the client will be .NET and the browser for simpler tasks.
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Message #209674
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Re: Java Succumbing to .NET in my Organization
Do you even know that C/C++ can be compiled to .NET?
Utter nonsense.
.NET (the Micosoft clean-room JVM) supports Java (albeit slightly broken and renamed as C#) and two slightly syntactically-disguised versions of Java called VB.NET and C++.NET.
As has been pointed out many times by people who actually use VB and C++, .NET supports neither VB nor C/C++. Never has. Never will. Cannot.
(It is a nice research version of Java, though. ;-)
Peace,
Cameron Purdy
Tangosol Coherence: The Java Data Grid
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Message #209675
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thanks for the laughs
I can always count on cameron for a good laugh. if only my jokes were half as funny. good thing I don't tell jokes for a living.
peter
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Message #209676
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Re: Java Succumbing to .NET in my Organization
Wow... one of the longest threads.
It's zen-like stuff: :P
(1) One's strengths often reflect one's weaknesses (e.g., don't let your children to have too much freedom, etc.).
(2) Too open is as worse as closed (mind, character, framework, etc.).
(3) It is hard to make changes in one's life (life style, behavior, programming platform, etc.).
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Message #209677
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Re: Java Succumbing to .NET in my Organization
Do you even know that C/C++ can be compiled to .NET?
Well, sorta. You can't compile C into CLR compatible code since it lacks the OO layout needed. C++ is a hit or miss affair. Although, I don't know why someone would convert C++ to managed code since you loose serious performance.
In any case, .NET is the future of Windows programming whether people like it or not.
I haven't seen to many commercial applications of .NET yet. Most people shun the idea of download the .NET runtime just to run a application they bought at Best Buy. Maybe when Vista gets to market it may be an option.
There's just no getting around it.
I write apps that don't require the .NET that work just fine on windows.
And since desktop linux never took off,
Desktop Linux adoption is gaining traction. It's amazing how far they have come in a few years. Look at Ubuntu as an example. And with the new OpenGL desktops in development, it will soon outdo Microsoft.
the client will be .NET and the browser for simpler tasks.
Hmmm. This seems to ignore the current trend to web based applications. In this category, Microsoft's ASP technology is already starting to show its age. Atlas is a good example. I think most of the problem stems from the fact that Microsoft innovated too many technologies in to the language that it is starting to become hard for it to change with the times. Languages like Ruby and PHP are killing ASP while Java based technologies, for the most part, still remains just as popular as it was a few years ago. If ASP doesn't get some serious help its gonna fade in to obscurity.
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Message #209679
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Re: .NET makes a lot of sense
The real idiotic decision by Microsoft was to make it incompatible with Java, which means that developers are typically left with "either / or" choices. In the end, it will be the failure of .NET, because it's an all-or-nothing gambit (and I believe it provable that Microsoft cannot win "all
Our code runs on both - and it's not a trivial program. The trick is we have common source, not a common binary. We then compile for each (using J# for .NET). It all works remarkably well.
- dave
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Message #209680
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Microsoft is not above market laws (or customers)
... .Net tends to have a very inactive user community compared to Java because .Net developers are, for all intents and purposes, powerless compared to Microsoft... Thus, they tend to shut up and follow.
I don't have a good explanation why several .NET sites are less active than their Java counterparts, but saying that .NET developers are powerless is wrong: Microsoft is obsessed with feedback, they understand that if developers find too hard or simply don't like the way Visual Studio or .NET Framework do something, they will look for alternatives (Java, Ruby, etc.) Ditto for a browser, database, or operating system. Thus, just out of market laws, Microsoft *desperately* wants happy developers. And, about the "they tend to shut up and follow" law, you should see the Regional Directors discussion list: when they are asked (and even more so when they are *not* asked!) to give their opinion about any new feature, framework or product, the RD's do nothing close to shutup and follow :-)).
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Message #209685
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.Net
So... you have non-technical people making company-wide technical decisions at the project level.
And... you are mostly writing web-apps that sit on databases.
I guess it could be worse :)
But seriously:
-"Too much choice" is not an excuse to avoid a technology. It's an opportunity to tailor it to your company's needs. If *you* can't make those choices for frameworks, IDEs, middleware severs etc, then someone in your company should be able to. If not, then you will get a bunch of non-technical people making those choices for you. They will likely be the of the "Please spoon-feed me Mr. Vendor" variety. The spoon-feeding ends up being restrictive if you decide to break away from it -- and usually expensive.
-.NET has a *LOT* of implications that the Java platform simply does not have. Don't like the IDE? Too bad. Don't like the OS? Too bad. Don't like the web-server? Too bad. Microsoft died a horrible death? Too bad; there go your eggs. Haven't kept up on Mono, but I'm not sure that's a full-blown solution.
-Linux on Dell (or equivalent cheap OS on commodity boxes) WILL visit your company soon. When it does, the non-technologists in your company will have "another great idea" and you'll be saying "Umm, no we need to re-write that app for a non-Windows platform".
-CRUD apps sitting on databases are not really a Java vs. .Net worthy topic. You might want to try Ruby on Rails or HTMLDB or some other technology if all you want is a DB babysitter.
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Message #209682
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Re: Java Succumbing to .NET in my Organization
Except your analogy doesn't make sense. You do realize that this isn't 2001 and they've already done it, don't you? Maybe this stuff is complicated for you, but not for other people. It's as simple as "We're going to use C# for this project", or "we're going to use VB.NET for this project.
Right and everyone has upgraded from Windows 98 to XP...
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Message #209683
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Re: Microsoft is not above market laws (or customers)
... .Net tends to have a very inactive user community compared to Java because .Net developers are, for all intents and purposes, powerless compared to Microsoft... Thus, they tend to shut up and follow.
I don't have a good explanation why several .NET sites are less active than their Java counterparts, but saying that .NET developers are powerless is wrong: Microsoft is obsessed with feedback, they understand that if developers find too hard or simply don't like the way Visual Studio or .NET Framework do something, they will look for alternatives (Java, Ruby, etc.) Ditto for a browser, database, or operating system. Thus, just out of market laws, Microsoft *desperately* wants happy developers. And, about the "they tend to shut up and follow" law, you should see the Regional Directors discussion list: when they are asked (and even more so when they are *not* asked!) to give their opinion about any new feature, framework or product, the RD's do nothing close to shutup and follow :-)).
And then they hand the list to the marketing departement who throw it in the garbage and ask to have software automatically installed with no user interaction.
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Message #209684
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good god!!!!
If what you want do is create a front end to a database or integrate with a Office applications then use .NET. It is quicker than using Java. However if you want to create a highly scalable, highly available application that needs to update numerous databases and legacy systems in the same transaction then use J2EE.
I want to scream! Why do we insist on lapping up the J2EE marketing BS? You have just described 1 tenth of 1 percent of the application space, and that's what we should use Java for? Why on earth isn't Java a good choice for simple applications? It's sad, because there are some fantastic Java frameworks out there, like Wicket that are incredibly easy to use. We just have to take off these "enterprise" blinders and accept that the J2EE marketing has pumped out a tremendous load of bunk over the years.
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Message #209686
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Re: Java Succumbing to .NET in my Organization
Except your analogy doesn't make sense. You do realize that this isn't 2001 and they've already done it, don't you? Maybe this stuff is complicated for you, but not for other people. It's as simple as "We're going to use C# for this project", or "we're going to use VB.NET for this project.
Right and everyone has upgraded from Windows 98 to XP...
Right, and everyone has upgraded from Win3.1, or even DOS.
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Message #209687
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Re: good god!!!!
If what you want do is create a front end to a database or integrate with a Office applications then use .NET. It is quicker than using Java. However if you want to create a highly scalable, highly available application that needs to update numerous databases and legacy systems in the same transaction then use J2EE.
I want to scream! Why do we insist on lapping up the J2EE marketing BS? You have just described 1 tenth of 1 percent of the application space, and that's what we should use Java for? Why on earth isn't Java a good choice for simple applications? It's sad, because there are some fantastic Java frameworks out there, like Wicket that are incredibly easy to use. We just have to take off these "enterprise" blinders and accept that the J2EE marketing has pumped out a tremendous load of bunk over the years.
Sorry but this isn't marketing BS when the application has to live for more than 10 years (typical in bank, government, insurances, ...), even when it is only made of simple web pages hitting a DB. Of course, consultants don't care about such things and this is why they always try to promote *simple* solutions. They never had to deal with crazy law reforms.
One thing is for sure, Java is the new Cobol. It allows you to be sure that whatever craziness the director comes with (and they call it business *logic*...), you will be able to scale and adapt the application. As agility methods people has stated many times, software development has to embrace change from the beginning, so I don't buy the argument, if your application is simple you should use something else (*cough* Ruby on Rails *cough*). An application always starts simple than the mess happens so I am more comfortable to deal with a little bit more of complexity at first (and seriously the gap is shrinking more and more in the last years) to know I'll be able to handles everything thrown at me.
By the way, now it is quite simple to make basic web applications using frameworks like JSF or Tapestry coupled with something like Spring and Hibernate or iBatis. Than you add Maven 2, and you got all this scaffold generation stuff the Ruby of Rail crowd is so proud of.
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Message #209688
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Re: Java Succumbing to .NET in my Organization
Except your analogy doesn't make sense. You do realize that this isn't 2001 and they've already done it, don't you? Maybe this stuff is complicated for you, but not for other people. It's as simple as "We're going to use C# for this project", or "we're going to use VB.NET for this project.
Right and everyone has upgraded from Windows 98 to XP...
Right, and everyone has upgraded from Win3.1, or even DOS.
Well according to the last number I heard, there are a LOT of corporation still using Windows 98 and not XP. I know where I work they switched like one year ago.
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Message #209689
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Re: Java Succumbing to .NET in my Organization
Utter nonsense.
.NET (the Micosoft clean-room JVM) supports Java (albeit slightly broken and renamed as C#) and two slightly syntactically-disguised versions of Java called VB.NET and C++.NET.
Yes, C# is "broken" that's why Sun has to use it for ideas for the next revision of their dumbed-down Java.
As has been pointed out many times by people who actually use VB and C++, .NET supports neither VB nor C/C++. Never has. Never will. Cannot.
Yes, and that's why Quake II had to be rewritten in another language. Not.
http://www.codeproject.com/managedcpp/quake2.asp
(It is a nice research version of Java, though. ;-)
Exactly, Microsoft does the research and Sun copies.
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Message #209691
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Re: Java Succumbing to .NET in my Organization
Well according to the last number I heard, there are a LOT of corporation still using Windows 98 and not XP. I know where I work they switched like one year ago.
Maybe 98 wasn't as bad as everybody made it out to be. And please quantify "a LOT".
But to say, as the OP stated, that there isn't a lot of .NET development being done is retarded.
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Message #209690
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Re: Java Succumbing to .NET in my Organization
Utter nonsense.
.NET (the Micosoft clean-room JVM) supports Java (albeit slightly broken and renamed as C#) and two slightly syntactically-disguised versions of Java called VB.NET and C++.NET.
Yes, C# is "broken" that's why Sun has to use it for ideas for the next revision of their dumbed-down Java.
As has been pointed out many times by people who actually use VB and C++, .NET supports neither VB nor C/C++. Never has. Never will. Cannot.
Yes, and that's why Quake II had to be rewritten in another language. Not.
http://www.codeproject.com/managedcpp/quake2.asp
(It is a nice research version of Java, though. ;-)
Exactly, Microsoft does the research and Sun copies.
...
http://www.bytonic.de/html/jake2.html
And God said let's the flame war begin!
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Message #209692
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Re: Java Succumbing to .NET in my Organization
...
http://www.bytonic.de/html/jake2.html
And God said let's the flame war begin!
Haha, they rewrote the entire thing in Java. I guess someone might be rewriting it in Ruby too, or Python, or BrainF*ck, or..
Wake me up when someone is compiling C++ (any kind of C++) to the JVM.
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Message #209693
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Re: Java Succumbing to .NET in my Organization
...
http://www.bytonic.de/html/jake2.html
And God said let's the flame war begin!
Haha, they rewrote the entire thing in Java. I guess someone might be rewriting it in Ruby too, or Python, or BrainF*ck, or..
Wake me up when someone is compiling C++ (any kind of C++) to the JVM.
Why would they? You know Java supports this thing called system integration.
But if you want to program using a totally different language there is always JRuby, JPython, Groovy or BeanShell.
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Message #209694
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Re: Java Succumbing to .NET in my Organization
Do you even know that C/C++ can be compiled to .NET?
Well, sorta. You can't compile C into CLR compatible code since it lacks the OO layout needed. C++ is a hit or miss affair. Although, I don't know why someone would convert C++ to managed code since you loose serious performance.
Why does most of crap out there get written? Why are there a billion IRC clients on sourceforge. Who knows. Actually, according to the guys that did the port, the performance hit wasn't bad. It'd probably be better with .NET 2.0 http://www.codeproject.com/managedcpp/quake2.asp
I haven't seen to many commercial applications of .NET yet. Most people shun the idea of download the .NET runtime just to run a application they bought at Best Buy. Maybe when Vista gets to market it may be an option.
The difference is that almost all windows computers will have .NET and the commercial applications will be there. How much shrink-wrapped Java is there?
I write apps that don't require the .NET that work just fine on windows.
The win32 subystem will be there for years to come. Duh. Microsoft realizes they can't get rid of it overnight. The point is that .NET will (if not already) the preferred way to write desktop applications on Windows. Vista pretty much seals the deal on that.
Desktop Linux adoption is gaining traction. It's amazing how far they have come in a few years. Look at Ubuntu as an example. And with the new OpenGL desktops in development, it will soon outdo Microsoft.
That's what we hear every year:) At the rate it's going now it'll be another half-century before they get to 10%. I'd look to OSX taking a bite out of the windows desktop market before Linux does. There's just way too much fragmentation on Linux.
Hmmm. This seems to ignore the current trend to web based applications.
DHTML(Ajax included) is broken as a real application delivery vehicle, no matter how much server-side guys want to wish otherwise. Flash is a bit better, but it has its own issues. Sorry, but a dumb web terminal isn't going to take over the world.
In this category, Microsoft's ASP technology is already starting to show its age. Atlas is a good example. I think most of the problem stems from the fact that Microsoft innovated too many technologies in to the language that it is starting to become hard for it to change with the times.
Except millions of programmers use it just fine. Let's not get started on all the crap that Sun has inflicted on people. And you're talking about languages. Sun doesn't do anything with theirs except for the occasional rip-off of some C# feature.
Languages like Ruby and PHP are killing ASP while Java based technologies, for the most part, still remains just as popular as it was a few years ago. If ASP doesn't get some serious help its gonna fade in to obscurity.
Hehe, sure. That's why you get a hordes of Java programmers having a mental meltdown everytime RoR is mentioned.
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Message #209695
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Re: Java Succumbing to .NET in my Organization
Why would they? You know Java supports this thing called system integration.
But if you wan | |
